TWISTED SISTER Singer: 'Reality TV Is Not Reality TV Anymore'

In the second part of TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider's interview with Crowgrrl.com, Dee spoke about his involvement in the upcoming VH1 reality show "Meet the Family".

"VH1 just finished filming the bulk of the pilot and a couple other potential episodes for 'Meet the Family'," he revealed. "It's a new series they're doing — taking celebrity families, doing pilots on them, and then sort of mini-reality series. Their idea is — for a new approach, here's just a little dose of Dee Snider and his family, a dose of George Hamilton and his family, a dose of Joey Fatone and his family. But they're also sort of testing the waters, and if they get a good reaction, they can blow it up.

"Fat chance. It was an interesting experience. Not miserable, but for the way we live our lives at the pace at which we live, it just gets in the way.

"Reality TV is not reality TV anymore. In the very, very earliest days, it was literally cinema verite; you see jostling cameras. You go back to 'The Loud Family' in the Sixties or Seventies, that was the first reality show, it was on PBS. It was real documentary-style shooting. But it got more and more refined. As it got more refined, viewers were expecting it to look more refined. They want now a beginning, a middle, and an end. The best example of this that I can show you — they asked, 'What do you guys do? We want to capture you.' We go to the mall. We're a suburban family, we've got kids, they go to school. We've got to get them clothes, we go shopping. 'Can we go with you?' Sure. Then they say, 'Hold it, can we get you to exit the house together?'

"Suburban reality, a husband, wife, and four kids — I stand outside, got two kids in the car screaming into the house for everyone to get in the freaking car. Finally, I can't take any more. I go in the front door. The two I had in the car, they left and went back in the house. The other two came out the back door.

"I finally get everybody in the car. We leave, then my wife remembers that she forgot something. We go around the block, go back in. She goes inside, two of the kids get out. It takes a half hour just to leave. But they had us all walk out the front door at the same time a couple of times so they can shoot it from different angles. I'm thinking, 'This is some reality!'

"Once we're at the store, it's really happening. You go into the store and people are really shopping. It's as real as having cameras all around you and people crowded around the store looking in. When I go to the store, I put on a baseball hat but people recognize me all the time, but you're not trying to draw attention to yourself. You're trying to just go to the store. But the minute you walk in with a camera crew, reality went out the window.

"But we finished the principal photography. I don't know when it's going to start airing. The rule of thumb is they go one step at a time. If the pilot's not good, they won't air it, period. If they pilot's good but they don’t think it's more than that — what happened with Tommy Lee was they had a special about a year or so ago. It was a one-hour special; it was originally supposed to be a series but it didn't work out. So, then they'll do a special. If they like the pilot and special, they'll go with more episodes. Then if people like that, then they'll try to come back and say, 'We’d like to put together a full time show.' Never say never, but I really don't see it happening."

Read the entire second part of Snider's interview with Crowgrrl.com at this location.